Software applications, such as mobile applications (or apps) are designed for execution over mobile devices (typically a smart phone or tablet computer). Such apps, referred to hereinafter as “mobile apps”, are usually available through application distribution platforms and can be downloaded from such platforms or repositories, for example, AppStore®, GooglePlay®, Windows® Phone play, and the like.
Hundreds of thousands of mobile applications are currently available in the various application distribution platforms. Several search tools that are currently provided by the distribution platforms or as external tools are designed to assist a user to find a specific application. The search tools may include, for example, a textual-based search engine, classification engines, and recommendation engines. A classification engine typically classifies applications, based on popularity, cost, category (e.g., games, travel, etc.).
The explosion in the number of available mobile applications, and the different combinations of types of applications, makes it increasingly difficult for users to search for a mobile application relevant to their specific interests. In most cases, in order to find relevant mobile applications, a well-defined search term is required and/or prior knowledge of the applications' classification is required. However, for novice users it may be difficult to express their desired results in words. Alternatively, users would have to browse through hundreds of applications if they do not provide a descriptive search term or search by a category.
It would be therefore advantageous to provide an efficient and intuitive solution for searching for mobile applications in application distribution platforms.